Japanese production management: An evolution—With mixed success

TLDR

Japanese production management emerged as a dominant influence in operations management in the early 1980s, with its core elements—quick set‑up, small lots, cells, kanban—becoming widely known, yet recent lapses and disappointments raise questions about its sustainability and evolving manifestations. The study aims to trace the sequence of events that established JPM as a global competitive force and assess its impact on operations‑management theory and practice. The authors examine JPM’s evolution through shifting terminology, fusions, adulterations, limited service‑sector extensions, and Western‑origin innovations. Longitudinal inventory‑trend data reveal that JPM has diffused unevenly, becoming mainstream after three decades but with problematic current and future states.

Abstract

Abstract Japanese production management (JPM) became a dominant influence in the field of operations management when, in the early 1980s, knowledge of its main elements became known beyond Japan. Those elements – quick set‐up, small lots, cells, kanban, and so on – are well known. Rather than explaining them again, this paper's objective is to explore the sequence of events leading to JPM as a competitive force globally, as well as its impact on theory and practices in operations management. JPM's evolution includes shifting terminologies, fusions and adulterations; limited extensions from manufacturing into services and innovative enhancements, largely of Western origin. Longitudinal research data, based on inventory trends, provide insights on JPM's diffusions and its uneven results. Latter‐day puzzling lapses and disappointments, among Japanese as well as Western companies, raise questions about JPM's sustainability, as well as some of its changing manifestations. While the core of Japanese production management, now over three decades old, appears to have become solidly mainstream, its current and future states are problematic.